Monthly Archives: January 2012

So, loyal readers know that I’ve been doing my Best Picture Project for quite a while now, whereby I’ve been watching and writing about every Academy Award winner for Best Picture. Because I’ve got a real job and other interests, like writing – BUY MY BOOKS – it’s taken me about two years or so to get through 49. Never fear, I’m still chugging away on that and hope to have a new post for that relatively soon.

Nevertheless, with Oscar time is right around the corner it got me thinking about past ceremonies, especially the times when the Academy trots out some old geezer too show it is in touch with its history. Sometimes it’s Kirk Douglas giving out an Award last year. Other times it’s when the Academy does one of those ‘family portrait’ type things where they get all the living actors with Oscars together to trot on stage for everybody to see – I think the last one was for the 2002 or 2003 Awards.

All these historical tributes the Oscars like to do got me thinking about who are the longest surviving Oscar winners in every category, and by longest surviving, I don’t mean oldest. No, what I want to know is who, in a given category, is the living Oscar winner who won the Award earliest. So listed below is each category the Academy gives Awards in – with some streamlining, to deal with the fact that categories may have had slight name changes but ultimately continued to honor the same thing – with the name of the longest surviving winner, film and year won listed as well. Just for fun, the year the category was established is included as well. Continue reading →

When The King’s Speech won Best Picture this past year at the Oscars, I was a bit beside myself over it, because I didn’t really fancy it as Best Picture. An enjoyable film? Sure. Best Picture? No.

In retrospect, though, it doesn’t make sense I would get upset about it, after all, the Academy has shown a history of honoring films just like The King’s Speech: solid, inoffensive films that are hardly loved, but more importantly, hardly hated. In other words, unlike Black Swan or The Social Network, which had a tendency to be divisive, The King’s Speech is least likely to offend voters and therefore, most likely to rise to the top. Continue reading →

Regular readers of this blog will know that in addition to this blog, and my real job in real life, I also write fiction. Thus far I’ve published two books that you all know about, Girl Band and it’s not a chick flick, but recently I released a third: While You Were Here.

The good news is that, if you’ve been avoiding buying my books because you don’t want to front the cash, you can get them cheap, only $0.99 at Amazon for the Kindle. Even better, if you’re a member of Amazon Prime, you don’t have to pay a thing!

Of course, if you have to have the print version, get it through Createspace and I’ll give you a $1.00 off. Continue reading →